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Not rocket science, old mate

Andrew Wu

SHANE Warne would be accused of handing jobs to the boys if he was in charge of the hiring and firing at Cricket Australia.

Just on 18 months ago, Australian cricket had a revolution following Don Argus' root and branch review into the game in this country. The review took some six months to compile.

Argus' 10,000-word-plus document was a ''fact-based analysis of team and individual player performance''. Eighty-four current players and 160 former players were consulted.

In contrast, Warne's 1185-word dossier was compiled in just over 24 hours, though he did push publication of his review back by three hours in order to ''get it right''.

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Nearly all of Warne's 12 appointments are former teammates, many close friends of the champion leg-spinner, who still holds considerable sway even though he is not an office bearer.

Gone are key men John Inverarity and Pat Howard, part of an administration that he accused of having ''muppets'' at the helm.

In their place are Rod Marsh, the new chairman of selectors, and Mark Taylor.

Marsh is the only selector to survive Warne's purge, though as a key lieutenant of Inverarity's, the former wicketkeeper is a key man in Cricket Australia's current panel and free to offer a dissenting voice - if he indeed disagrees with them.

Taylor was one of the authors of the Argus report, which recommended the implementation of the current structure that Warne criticises as having ''too many people justifying their existence''.

Part of the anti-Cricket Australia sentiment Warne has tapped into can be found among those who believe cricket nous should take precedence over science and technology.

Warne, no fan of CA's rotation policy or ''informed player management'', will meet CA chief James Sutherland next week but it would come as a major surprise if it were to tear up the Argus report and replace it with this manifesto.